From Nightmares to Dreams
An Airwolf fanfic
By: Sirius
Rating: T
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Belisarius Productions, not me. If they were mine, Cait and Hawke would have gotten together a long time ago, and Season Four would have been vastly different.
A/N: This is my first Airwolf fanfic, though I have written for other fandoms. The muses wouldn't shut up.
Summary: How did Caitlin deal with the events of Horn of Plenty? Or rather, what I wish would have happened after that episode.
Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~Airwolf
Chapter 1
Hawke headed up to Cait's little house, oddly grateful that she'd given keys to himself and Dom a while back… 'just in case.' The doctors at the FIRM hospital had wanted to keep him overnight, but he'd never been one to listen to medical advice. Cait, knowing that, had whispered an offer and a warning to him. She told him that she knew him too well to think he'd actually stay put, but if he had to leave, he'd better call her or take a taxi to her place, because if she found out he'd even thought of taking a chopper up to the cabin, she'd come up after him and tie him to his own bed to get him to stay still. He'd laughed at the time, but knew she was perfectly serious… and she could do it, too. Cait was better at hand-to-hand than he was.
All things considered, taking a taxi to her place to sack out on her couch had seemed the option least-likely to lead to more damage, but now, walking to her door, Hawke was glad for the key. His gut was doing a number tonight, and he had a feeling that if he didn't have it, he'd be needing to break the door down.
His sharp ears picked up the sounds of a very unhappy Caitlin, but couldn't hear anyone else in the house. A nightmare? Silently, he unlocked her front door and slid through it, just as quietly closing it behind him. Cait's words became clear to him – pleading mixed with tears – and he remembered where he'd heard those words before, deep in Horn's stronghold, when he'd been shaking off the last of the brainwashing. Cait had reassured him that he hadn't shot Dom, but he'd not noticed the tears on her face then. He didn't even remember that they'd been falling until now.
Aw, Cait.
"Hawke! No!" Cait's scream spurred him to quicker action, and he ran to her bedroom, unsurprised to find her in the middle of a nightmare. Hawke moved to her side, listening to every painful word, and coming to the heart-wrenching realization that for a moment… Cait had thought he was dead. More, she thought she'd killed him. And in the nightmare, he wasn't waking up.
Hawke sat on the edge of her bed and set a gentle hand on Cait's cheek, startled when she turned her head – still asleep – to lay a kiss in the middle of his palm. The tortured whispers of "love you" and "gone" that were murmured against his palm hit Hawke like a kick to the gut, and he felt her pain like a physical thing.
He wiped the tears from her face with work-roughened fingers, and spoke her name to try and wake her from the nightmare. "Caitlin. Caitlin, wake up for me. It's alright. I'm here."
Her blue-green eyes snapped open, still awash in tears, and she latched onto him as though she was afraid he'd disappear right in front of her. Given what he'd just woken her from, that didn't surprise him. He couldn't say the same for the kiss she laid on him a moment after that.
Cait's kiss – so different from the first they'd shared, in front of a camera, for a stunt – was passionate and loving, sweet and salty like her tears, and Hawke was helpless in the face of her feelings for him. He kissed her back, wrapped her in his arms and held her tight, and when the kiss ended, he continued to hold her. He'd spent so many years pushing away anyone he cared for, trapped in a prison of his own making, the belief that everyone he loved, died. But Cait, Cait had been in danger so many times… and survived. Cait was there every day, and hadn't been stolen from him, yet. But in her nightmares, he was the one that died, and she had – for all intents and purposes – seen him die.
He loved her, and if he had died that day, she never would have known, because he hadn't half her courage. He knew why she hadn't said anything to him; he would've run to his cabin and not come back down until she'd left Santini Air… until he'd succeeded in pushing her out of his life.
"You woulda tried." It wasn't until Hawke heard Cait's whispered comment that he realized he'd voiced his thoughts. He looked down and met her eyes with his.
"You woulda tried," she repeated, her honeyed Texas drawl made thicker by exhaustion and tears. "But if you'd tried that, I woulda just come up to that cabin of yours and dragged you out – or locked myself in. One of the two. I should have done that anyway, because if you'd died there, on that damn floor, without ever knowin' how I felt, nothin' woulda been left but regrets. I'm not willing to live with regrets anymore, Hawke. And I'm not keen on waitin' anymore, either. I love you. You know I love you. You just told me you felt the same way, even if you didn't intend to. Yeah, life is unpredictable. Yeah, I could die on a mission; as it turns out, so could you. Yeah, either one of us could meet our end in the joy that is Los Angeles traffic… but what excuse could we have for wasting every moment from this one to that, whenever that last moment might be? Why waste it, Hawke?"
Hawke realized that he had no intention of doing any such thing, and told her as much. Kicking off his shoes, he lay on the bed, tucking Caitlin to his side, her titian hair spreading over his shirt like flickers from a campfire. It took him only a moment to notice that she'd settled so her ear was right over his heart. Hawke dropped a kiss on her head, and held her through the darkness. Morning would be soon enough to talk over any details… but he wouldn't push her away… not Cait.
Airwolf~~~Airwolf~~~